The Æneids of Virgil, Done into English Verse

by Virgil

By death of Neoptolemus his kingdom's leavings came
To Helenus, who called the fields Chaonian fields by name,
And all the land Chaonia, from Chaon of Troy-town;
And Pergamus and Ilian burg on ridgy steep set down.
What winds, what fates gave thee the road to cross the ocean o'er?
Or what of Gods hath borne thee on unwitting to our shore?
What of the boy Ascanius? lives he and breathes he yet?
Whom unto thee when Troy yet was——340
The boy then, of his mother lost, hath he a thought of her?
Do him Æneas, Hector gone, father and uncle, stir,
To valour of the ancient days, and great hearts' glorious gain?'

Such tale she poured forth, weeping sore, and long she wept in vain
Great floods of tears: when lo, from out the city draweth nigh
Lord Helenus the Priam-born midst mighty company,
And knows his kin, and joyfully leads onward to his door,
Though many a tear 'twixt broken words the while doth he outpour.
So on; a little Troy I see feigned from great Troy of fame,
A Pergamus, a sandy brook that hath the Xanthus name,350
On threshold of a Scæan gate I stoop to lay a kiss.
Soon, too, all Teucrian folk are wrapped in friendly city's bliss,
And them the King fair welcomes in amid his cloisters broad,
And they amidmost of the hall the bowls of Bacchus poured,
The meat was set upon the gold, and cups they held in hand.

So passed a day and other day, until the gales command
The sails aloft, and canvas swells with wind from out the South:
Therewith I speak unto the seer, such matters in my mouth:
'O Troy-born, O Gods' messenger, who knowest Phœbus' will,
The tripods and the Clarian's bay, and what the stars fulfil,360
And tongues of fowl, and omens brought by swift foreflying wing,
Come, tell the tale! for of my way a happy heartening thing
All shrines have said, and all the Gods have bid me follow on
To Italy, till outland shores, far off, remote were won:
Alone Celæno, Harpy-fowl, new dread of fate set forth,
Unmeet to tell, and bade us fear the grimmest day of wrath,
And ugly hunger. How may I by early perils fare?
Or doing what may I have might such toil to overbear?'

So Helenus, when he hath had the heifers duly slain,
Prays peace of Gods, from hallowed head he doffs the bands again,370
And then with hand he leadeth me, O Phœbus, to thy door,
My fluttering soul with all thy might of godhead shadowed o'er.
There forth at last from God-loved mouth the seer this word did send:

'O Goddess-born, full certainly across the sea ye wend
By mightiest bidding, such the lot the King of Gods hath found
All fateful; so he rolls the world, so turns its order round.
Few things from many will I tell that thou the outland sea
May'st sail the safer, and at last make land in Italy;
The other things the Parcæ still ban Helenus to wot,
Saturnian Juno's will it is that more he utter not.380
First, from that Italy, which thou unwitting deem'st anigh,
Thinking to make in little space the haven close hereby,
Long is the wayless way that shears, and long the length of land;
And first in the Trinacrian wave must bend the rower's wand.
On plain of that Ausonian salt your ships must stray awhile,
And thou must see the nether meres, Ææan Circe's isle,
Ere thou on earth assured and safe thy city may'st set down.
I show thee tokens; in thy soul store thou the tokens shown.
When thou with careful heart shalt stray the secret stream anigh,
And 'neath the holm-oaks of the shore shalt see a great sow lie,390
That e'en now farrowed thirty head of young, long on the ground
She lieth white, with piglings white their mother's dugs around,—
That earth shall be thy city's place, there rest from toil is stored.
Nor shudder at the coming curse, the gnawing of the board,
The Fates shall find a way thereto; Apollo called shall come.
But flee these lands of Italy, this shore so near our home,
That washing of the strand thereof our very sea-tide seeks;
For in all cities thereabout abide the evil Greeks.
There now have come the Locrian folk Narycian walls to build;
And Lyctian Idomeneus Sallentine meads hath filled400
With war-folk; Philoctetes there holdeth Petelia small,
Now by that Melibœan duke fenced round with mighty wall.
Moreover, when your ships have crossed the sea, and there do stay,
And on the altars raised thereto your vows ashore ye pay,
Be veiled of head, and wrap thyself in cloth of purple dye,
Lest 'twixt you and the holy fires ye light to God on high
Some face of foeman should thrust in the holy signs to spill.
Now let thy folk, yea and thyself, this worship thus fulfil,
And let thy righteous sons of sons such fashion ever mind.
But when, gone forth, to Sicily thou comest on the wind,410
And when Pelorus' narrow sea is widening all away,
Your course for leftward lying land and leftward waters lay,
How long soe'er ye reach about: flee right-hand shore and wave.
In time agone some mighty thing this place to wrack down drave,
So much for changing of the world doth lapse of time avail.

It split atwain, when heretofore the two lands, saith the tale,
Had been but one, the sea rushed in and clave with mighty flood
Hesperia's side from Italy, and field and city stood
Drawn back on either shore, along a sundering sea-race strait.
There Scylla on the right hand lurks, the left insatiate420
Charybdis holds, who in her maw all whirling deep adown
Sucketh the great flood tumbling in thrice daily, which out-thrown
Thrice daily doth she spout on high, smiting the stars with brine.
But Scylla doth the hidden hole of mirky cave confine;
With face thrust forth she draweth ships on to that stony bed;
Manlike above, with maiden breast and lovely fashioned
Down to the midst, she hath below huge body of a whale,
And unto maw of wolfish heads is knit a dolphin's tail.
'Tis better far to win about Pachynus, outer ness
Of Sicily, and reach long round, despite the weariness,430
Than have that ugly sight of her within her awful den,
And hear her coal-blue baying dogs and rocks that ring again.

Now furthermore if Helenus in anything have skill,
Or aught of trust, or if his soul with sooth Apollo fill,
Of one thing, Goddess-born, will I forewarn thee over all,
And spoken o'er and o'er again my word on thee shall fall:
The mighty Juno's godhead first let many a prayer seek home;
To Juno sing your vows in joy, with suppliant gifts o'ercome
That Lady of all Might; and so, Trinacria overpast,
Shalt thou be sped to Italy victorious at the last.440
When there thou com'st and Cumæ's town amidst thy way hast found,
The Holy Meres, Avernus' woods fruitful of many a sound,
There the wild seer-maid shalt thou see, who in a rock-hewn cave
Singeth of fate, and letteth leaves her names and tokens have:
But whatso song upon those leaves the maiden seer hath writ
She ordereth duly, and in den of live stone leaveth it:
There lie the written leaves unmoved, nor shift their ordered rows.
But when the hinge works round, and thence a light air on them blows,
Then, when the door doth disarray among the frail leaves bear,
To catch them fluttering in the cave she never hath a care,450
Nor will she set them back again nor make the song-words meet;
So folk unanswered go their ways and loathe the Sibyl's seat.
But thou, count not the cost of time that there thou hast to spend;
Although thy fellows blame thee sore, and length of way to wend
Call on thy sails, and thou may'st fill their folds with happy gale,
Draw nigh the seer, and strive with prayers to have her holy tale;
Beseech her sing, and that her words from willing tongue go free:
So reverenced shall she tell thee tale of folk of Italy
And wars to come; and how to 'scape, and how to bear each ill,
And with a happy end at last thy wandering shall fulfil.460
Now is this all my tongue is moved to tell thee lawfully:
Go, let thy deeds Troy's mightiness exalt above the sky!'

So when the seer from loving mouth such words as this had said,
Then gifts of heavy gold and gifts of carven tooth he bade
Be borne a-shipboard; and our keels he therewithal doth stow
With Dodonæan kettle-ware and silver great enow,
A coat of hookèd woven mail and triple golden chain,
A helm with noble towering crest crowned with a flowing mane,
The arms of Pyrrhus: gifts most meet my father hath withal;
And steeds he gives and guides he gives,470
Fills up the tale of oars, and arms our fellows to their need.
Anchises still was bidding us meanwhile to have a heed
Of setting sail, nor with the wind all fair to make delay;
To whom with words of worship now doth Phœbus' servant say:
'Anchises, thou whom Venus' bed hath made so glorious,
Care of the Gods, twice caught away from ruin of Pergamus,
Lo, there the Ausonian land for thee, set sail upon the chase:
Yet needs must thou upon the sea glide by its neighbouring face.
Far off is that Ausonia yet that Phœbus open lays.
Fare forth, made glad with pious son! why tread I longer ways480
Of speech, and stay the rising South with words that I would tell?'

And therewithal Andromache, sad with the last farewell,
Brings for Ascanius raiment wrought with picturing wool of gold,
And Phrygian coat; nor will she have our honour wax acold,
But loads him with the woven gifts, and such word sayeth she:
'Take these, fair boy; keep them to be my hands' last memory,
The tokens of enduring love thy younger days did win
From Hector's wife Andromache, the last gifts of thy kin.
O thou, of my Astyanax the only image now!
Such eyes he had, such hands he had, such countenance as thou,490
And now with thee were growing up in equal tale of years.'

Then I, departing, spake to them amid my rising tears:
'Live happy! Ye with fortune's game have nothing more to play,
While we from side to side thereof are hurried swift away.
Your rest hath blossomed and brought forth; no sea-field shall ye till,
Seeking the fields of Italy that fade before you still.
Ye see another Xanthus here, ye see another Troy,
Made by your hands for better days mehopes, and longer joy:
And soothly less it lies across the pathway of the Greek,
If ever I that Tiber flood and Tiber fields I seek500
Shall enter, and behold the walls our folk shall win of fate.
Twin cities some day shall we have, and folks confederate,
Epirus and Hesperia; from Dardanus each came,
One fate had each: them shall we make one city and the same,
One Troy in heart: lo, let our sons of sons' sons see to it!'